Review: Ugly Love

Reviewer: Kelsey
Author: Colleen Hoover
Format: Paperback (I think? I can't remember)
Pages: 337
Rating: 8.75 out of 10

Summary (I love not ugly Goodreads): When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.

My Very Personal Opinion: Firstly, the word 'opinion' looks like the word onion and that always throws me off. Alas, I've already gone off track with this review. To get myself quickly back on track I will share with you my love of Colleen Hoover. It is a love that cannot be denied and probably wouldn't change if her novels began to suck but, of course, that could never happen because she is Colleen Hoover. She's my hero. Go follow her on facebook if you question her awesomeness. She makes me extremely happy and, to this day, when I go to combat classes and am punching at nothing, I have flashbacks to reading the part of Maybe Someday where there are some much deserved punches thrown. 

Now onto the book, which is what you are really reading this for. Don't worry, I have no delusions that you read this blog because I am wonderfully intelligent or being I am astoundingly hilarious and witty. I know the truth.

Okay, so it wasn't better than Maybe Someday but I'm beginning to think that nothing is. This novel starts out strong and it holds true. Even when you think you have it figured out, you don't. I knew something big was going to happen in Miles backstory but I didn't know exactly what it would be. It was sufficiently devastating. 

Tate and Miles had an interesting relationship right from the get go. There was some second hand embarrassment and some first hand anger. What I don't understand is why she put up with this crap for so long. She's wonderful and deserved so much more from him. My heart was breaking for her during a great deal of this novel.

Miles' point of view was the most bizarre thing I've maybe ever read. It took a little while to get used to but I understood why it was written the way it was. I didn't grudge it anything. It was simply unique. I liked what it did at the ending, switching back.

The author has this wonderful way of making you connect to her characters and really feel for them. It's both wonderful and awful. It's a talent that is shown in most of her novels. She also makes very unique stories. Pilots? That's new for me. I liked the change. Plus, the sunset from the sky thing was beautiful, I thought. 

This novel was a fast finish but even if it wasn't, it would be well worth any time spent reading it.

Basically: Read it. Read all of Colleen Hoover's novels. Do it. Just listen to be and do as I say. I'm so easy to please, go now. Honestly, I think it's already time for a reread of this one.

P.S. Colleen Hoover, if you happen to stumble upon this for whatever reason. You are a wonderful human being and I will meet you one day if I have to fly across Canada and the United States to do so. Kristen feels the same. Keep up the outstanding work. Also, your pig is adorable and I am jealous.

Life of a Blogger [4]

Life of a Blogger is a weekly feature that I found through the amazing Rebecca at Vicariously! ,  hosted by the lovely Novel Heartbeat. Each week a subject will be chosen and we get to talk about it. The topics will be non-bookish so that you can get to know each other on a more personal level! Make sure to add your link on the linky list! 

This week's topic is: Scents (what you like, what you don't) 

Good question. I don't know. That's not true, yes I do. I like citrus-y smelling things. Anything orange and I promise you I'll probably like the smell. I'm not a fan of, what I call them, "winter scents". So anything vanilla-y, or cinnamon-y I'm just not a fan of. I blame my mom because that's all she likes. 
- Kristen

This is a very weird question. I don't like incense (my mom is weird). Oh, you know what's the worst? When you sit in a coffee shop for a long time (as Kristen and I are right now) and when you get home the smell is in your clothes. You didn't notice it at the time but suddenly it's all you can smell and you have to change right away. The smell stays in your hair until you shower. That's the worst. I like the smell of cinnamon buns and fresh bread. Who doesn't right? Right now, I'm trying to be healthy and most food smells make me really sick to my stomach.

-- Kelsey

COVER REVEAL: Gears of Brass

Gear up for GEARS OF BRASS! 

 A world like ours, but filled with gears of brass, where the beating heart is fuelled by steam and the simplest creation is a complex clockwork device.  

Within this tome, you’ll find steampunk fairy tale re-tellings, as well as original stories that will send your gears turning.  

Welcome to the steampunk realm, with eleven authors guiding your path. 

GEARS OF BRASS is a steampunk anthology published through Curiosity Quills.  It will be available for purchase on November 10, 2014.  Within the pages, you’ll come across clockwork inventions and steampunk-ified fairy tale retellings.  Eleven authors will guide you through worlds filled with airships, top hats, and corsets. 

Meet the authors:

Jordan Elizabeth writes young adult fantasy for Curiosity Quills, including ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW which was published in October and the upcoming TREASURE DARKLY; she’s represented by the Belcastro Agency.

J. Million is the author of Last of the Giants and can always be found reading or writing.

Lorna MacDonald Czarnota is a professional storyteller and author of several books including, Medieval Tales That Kids Can Read and Tell, Breadline Blue, Legends Lore and Secrets of Western New York, Wicked Niagara, Native American and Pioneer Sites of Upstate New York, and Dancing at the Crossroads: Stories and Activities for At-Risk Youth Programming.

SA Larsen is represented by Paula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary and is the author of published short stories, community-interest stories, and magazine articles focused on children. 

Grant Eagar is an Engineer who would take the tales he told his children at bed time, and transform them into fantasy stories. 

Clare Weze is the author of The House of Ash (forthcoming) and the co-author and editor of Cloudscapes over the Lune.

Eliza Tilton: gamer, writer and lover of dark chocolate; author of the YA Fantasy, BROKEN FOREST, published by Curiosity Quills Press.

Heather Talty's stories have been featured in Enchanted Conversation, as well as her own fractured fairy tale site, Mythopoetical (www.Beatrixcottonpants.com).

W.K. Pomeroy is a third generation writer who has published more than 70 short stories/articles/poems across many genres and styles, which now includes Steampunk.

Christine Baker is the author of Lana's End, The Guild of Dagda, and many more. 

Natalia Darcy: a bookilicious reader, tea drinker and Zumba aficionado who enjoys playing cards against humanity and washing her hair with ice cold water. 

You can get your steampunk fix before GEARS OF BRASS is released in November.  To enter for your chance to win a copy of GEARS OF BRASS, you will need to share the cover.  This can be on your blog, Facebook, Twitter… Each time you share the cover image, log it into Rafflecoper (click here!! ) to record it.  It will give you more chances to win.  The drawing for the winner will be held on October 27^th. 

<a id="rc-dcedff6d3" class="rafl" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/dcedff6d3/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a>

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Top Ten Tuesday [4]

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by the lovely folks at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list and everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

October 7: Ten Books For Readers Who Like Character Driven Novels
Okay, my list is probably going to be of character's who have stood out to me personally, so ya
Kristen's List: 
1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
3. Persistence of Vision by Liesel K Hill 
4. The Fault in our Stars by John Green
5. Flawed by Kate Avelynn 
6. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins 

7. Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover

8. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

9. If I Stay by Gayle Forman 

10. Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout 

Kelsey's List:

1. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

2. Splintered by A. G. Howard

3. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

4. The Taker by Alma Katsu

5. Wake by Amanda Hocking

6. Switched by Amanda Hocking

7. Florence by Ciya Cho

8. Born At Midnight by C.C. Hunter

9. Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

10. Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

Review: Siege and Storm (Grisha #2)

Reviewer: Kelsey
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 432
Rating: 6 out of 10

** Spoiler Alert: This is the second of a series. Read the review for Shadow and Bone HERE **

Summary (thanks to the siege of Goodreads): Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her--or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

My Thinking Stuff: This novel began much differently than I had anticipated. I was extremely excited for this novel but I didn't really know what was going to come of it. After all, the Darkling had been killed. He was gone. Except that he wasn't gone at all. Curses!

Can we just take a moment to rant and rave about how awesome their new friend is? I refuse to spoil this novel complete so I'll just say that he is wonderfully sarcastic and full of interesting and exciting secrets. I liked that his secrets remained as such until the reader needed to know what was happening. I like that there are other characters with different goals and plans all working and living together at once. I despise when I know every single detail of a novel while I'm reading it. Books like that lack surprise. There is a reason why people don't always know what everyone around them is thinking. It's the same thing in novels. Knowing everyone's plots and plans removes any traces of intrigue a novel might have started out with. This novel doesn't have that problem, even after we start getting little glimpses into what is happening with the Darkling.

This novel was a satisfactory continuation of this series. However, it was definitely and very obviously the middle book in a trilogy. There was a lot of connective tissue that lacked its own purpose at the current point in time. It was there but why? We don't need to know yet. Yes, the plot continued on its path and moved the story forward but it was pushing it towards the third novel more than it was pushing towards a resolution in the second. It's not really surprising.

So: I can't tell you why I like this series so much. It's hardly more than average but I have a serious drive to finish it. I think that I love the characters and their interactions more than anything else. I'll get back to you on that.

Life of a Blogger [3]

Life of a Blogger is a weekly feature that I found through the amazing Rebecca at Vicariously! ,  hosted by the lovely Novel Heartbeat. Each week a subject will be chosen and we get to talk about it. The topics will be non-bookish so that you can get to know each other on a more personal level! Make sure to add your link on the linky list! 

This week's topic is: Most Prized Possession 

I want to say my laptop, but I think that's too obvious of an answer because my mom guessed it and now I have to dig a little deeper. 
Okay, I think I'm going to say a locket that my grandma gave me. It has a picture of her and my grandpa in it and she gave it to me when he passed away. I'm very thankful that I have it, and I really should wear it more often. 
- Kristen

As pathetic as it is, I think my answer for this is my laptop. It was a gift and has quickly become my life. I use it for Tumblr (which I'm on far too often) and facebook (also on that too much). My computer is a place to store my thoughts and photos and memories and homework. It's both a place for me to entertain myself and to work. It's also home to a plethra of started novels and a few finished ones. My computer enables me to do what I want to spend my life doing, wherever I happen to be at the time. It also has Sims on it...I like Sims. 

-- Kelsey

REVIEW: Stay With Me

Reviewer: Kristen 
Author: J. Lynn (Jennifer L. Armentrout) 
Pages: 448 
Format: Paperback
My Rating: 6 out of 10 

Review (thanks Goodreads): At 21, Calla hasn’t done a lot of things. She’s never been kissed, never seen the ocean, never gone to an amusement park. But growing up, she witnessed some things no child ever should. She still carries the physical and emotional scars of living with a strung-out mother, Mona—secrets she keeps from everyone, including her close circle of college friends.

But the safe cocoon Calla has carefully built is shattered when she discovers her mom has stolen her college money and run up a huge credit card debt in her name. Now, Calla has to go back to the small town she thought she'd left behind and clean up her mom’s mess again. Of course, when she arrives at her mother’s bar, Mona is nowhere to be found. Instead, six feet of hotness named Jackson James is pouring drinks and keeping the place humming.

Sexy and intense, Jax is in Calla’s business from the moment they meet, giving her a job and helping her search for Mona. And the way he looks at her makes it clear he wants to get horizontal . . . and maybe something more. Before Calla can let him get close, though, she’s got to deal with the pain of the past—and some very bad guys out to mess her up if she doesn’t give them her mom.


My thoughts: It paaaaaains me to have to only give this book a 6. Literal heart pains, people! I was just expecting sooo sooo much out of this book, and I hate to say it, but it just didn't deliver it. I loved Wait forYou, I adooooored Be With Me, and Stay With Me just kind of fell flat on its face. And here I will try to explain why: 

I can tell you, 100% for certain, that it was not the writing that didn't do it for me. This book was classic JLA, aka the writing was perfect. It was funny when it needed to be, and it actually felt like I was in a 21 year old's head. The writing is probably what saved the rating for me. 

So, the plot. It was... interesting. I'm kind of disappointed that we didn't see more of Calla's world before it went to - excuse my language - shit. Also, it would have been nice to see her world after. I would have liked to see her actually experience new things (aka the list of things she hasn't done). Anyways, moving on. The plot was intense, and it felt a little far fetched for me (maybe I'm the one whose too sheltered). I don't want to get into any spoilers, but the ending seemed way to convenient, which actually annoyed this girl a whole lot. There were a lot of little plot-y things that seemed thrown in for the hell of it, and got resolved to quickly/conveniently. I don't know, maybe that's just me. If you've read it, what do you - in particular, about the ending with the bar/Mona - think? But, I digress...

I liked Calla. I liked her a lot. I thought she was funny, a little too obsessed with the word dumb, and despite having a shitty hand dealt to her, she was still optimistic (and not annoyingly so). I loved seeing Cam, Avery, Jase (!!!!) and Theresa too. I love how JLA is keeping all the characters present in the story and that we still are getting little glimpses of their lives. And here is where the real pain starts: I just did not like Jax. Nuh-uh girlfriend, would not want to be hanging around him. I thought that he was a tad bit creepy - and the fact that he apparently looks like Theo James didn't redeem him any points either. I don't know, but is it so hard for dudes to just accept the word "no". I mean, there were a few points where Calla herself says he's a bit creepy and just a wee bit off-kilter. I don't know, he just didn't do it for me, so that made for a long book. Which leads me to the  last thing I want to comment on: is the length of this book. Holy good God it was long. It felt like it was never ending and *ducks* there were even a few points where I just skipped pages. Just straight up flipped right past them. It probably only felt long because I wasn't as attached to the characters as I have been in the past (see Jase and Daemon).

The Quick & Dirty: If you love yourself some JLA, I still recommend reading this book. The writing was on point, and you've got to finish the series, obviously!